“Ghosts!” laughed Terry after a moment of silence. “They’re just what we need to brighten up our lives.”
“Let’s go in the old mansion and look around,” proposed Arden.
“Have we time?” suggested Sim.
They glanced at Dick for his verdict.
“We have about half an hour,” he said, looking at his watch. “Go on in if you want to.”
When they urged their horses through the overgrown tangle that had once been a front yard and came to a stop near the big broad porch, the pillars of which were tilting, Dick helped the three girls to dismount. Then, leading the horses to a tree with conveniently low branches, he looped the reins so the animals would not stray. Horses in the East are not trained like their Western cousins, to stand if the reins are left to dangle on the ground.
The girls held back a little before going up the four steps at the entrance of the house. It was a combination Georgian-Colonial style, squarely built, with a beautiful fanlight still intact over the center door.
“It is spooky, isn’t it?” asked Sim with a pleased little shiver.
“Did you ever see such a sorrowful house, though?” Arden wanted to know.
“What do you mean, sorrowful? To me it seems very proud and stern,” Terry decided.